1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and system for controlling vehicles, which is used in vehicles having a motive power generation apparatus configured to transmit torque of the output shaft to the drive wheels through a staged transmission apparatus, and in particular, to an apparatus and system for controlling vehicles, which is able to perform feedback control for bringing an actual acceleration in the vehicular anteroposterior (front-rear or vehicle-longitudinal) direction to the level of a target acceleration in such vehicles.
2. Related Art
This type of control apparatus is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2006-506270. According to the technique disclosed in this literature, calculation is made as to the torque requested for performing feedback control to bring an actual acceleration to the level of a target acceleration, and then the actuator is manipulated to control the actual torque to the requested torque. According to the control disclosed in the literature, requests from various applications for automatic control, such as cruise control and intervehicle (vehicle distance) control, can be expressed in terms of a target acceleration. Accordingly, it is not necessary to perform matching of the applications for the specification of every vehicle. That is, the only matching that should be performed for every vehicle is for the processing function which is used in setting a manipulated variable of an actuator to feedback-control the actual acceleration to a target acceleration.
In the case where a vehicle to be controlled is equipped with an automatically staged transmission apparatus, transmission of motive power is once interrupted between the motive power generation apparatus and the drive wheels, when the vehicle is under gear ratio switchover control. For this reason, during this control, no control can be performed for the acceleration of the vehicle, and thus the degree of difference between the actual acceleration and a target acceleration may sometimes be increased. In this case, the absolute value of the manipulated variable of the actuator, which value is calculated through feedback control, will be excessively large. Then, when the motive power is eventually transmitted from the motive power generation apparatus to the drive wheels with the progress of the gear ratio switchover control performed by the staged transmission apparatus, there is a risk that inappropriate driving force may be transmitted to the drive wheels because the actual acceleration is being controlled to the target acceleration. As a result, shock may be caused to the vehicle.